Sunspot

Her hands are specked with brown spots. Sunspots, liver-spots, she calls them. They dot her wrists and arms, like henna tattoos; but they’re ugly, a sign of age. Her hands are small, bone-thin. The perfect size for scrubbing sponges in tall glasses, for chasing scales up and down the organ, for finding things between the dresser and the wall.

Her nails are all different lengths. She gnaws at them while reading. She reads every day. Books about the Blue Ridge Mountains, Apache Indians out west, missions in Africa. Books that carry her old bones away from that rocking chair and out under the iridescent sky. She has never left her hometown, but in her mind, she’s walked the world over.

Her children don’t like books; they prefer movies. They prefer anything that’s faster, flashy, or more convenient. They don’t know the thrill of waiting for something to unfold. She has been unfolding, slowly, all her life.

“Make me a quilt,” her granddaughter asks. “Do a Rob-Peter-to-Pay-Paul or a Starburst or something. You know, something elegant, something classy.”

Her children are big on class. They don’t know that they come from the back hills of Pennsylvania, from country folks, pigs and potato bread. They don’t know their great-grandfather used to read his bible in Dutch. That the only things that got her seven brothers and sisters through the Depression were the vegetable garden, careful rationing, and grit. Her children have never had to go without. Her whole life has been without, and she’s been stronger for it.

These days she can feel the arthritis paint streaks of heat down the joints in her fingers. She can see her digits curl over on themselves. Her hands are not the hands of a lady, but they are no strangers to hard work. To hot water. To the skinning knife. To starch, and salt, and lye.

Her hands do not tremble when she picks up the needle and thread. She makes the pattern from memory and calls it Sunspot when she is done. It’s finished, draping quietly over the quilt-rack. But her granddaughter must wait to unfold it. Such things take time.